


Missing the Moon

by Morbane



Category: Galax-Arena Series - Gillian Rubinstein
Genre: Constructive Criticism Welcome, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-07-05 20:37:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15871311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morbane/pseuds/Morbane
Summary: Allan's view of the last act ofGalax-Arena.





	Missing the Moon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dolorosa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dolorosa/gifts).



When we'd come back with the silver implants in our arms, there had been tension in Hythe's shoulders, in the way his gaze flicked across our wrists and only then up to our eyes. "You've never been so high in your life, boys," he said, softly. "Better not fall now." Like everything he said, it was half-praise, half-challenge, both push and pull, but he had paused before saying it. He'd trained us to pay attention to him, and because of that, I think he gave away more of his moods than he meant to. So I guessed: there could only be one leader, but now there were three trainers. Even though he was first, the authority we'd been given might be a threat to his. He'd made our elevation sound like his idea, but I wondered.

I looked at his dead, clawed body, and thought with a kind of vertigo about how he had been right to be wary.

I was the only one still standing, staring: when the door had closed on the peb who'd chosen to go, and Bro Rabbit had slid out of sight, the remaining peb had retreated. I could feel commands go through the link: Peter was to pursue and pretend. The commands were dim for me.

This was something I'd never guessed. The implant shielded you from the worst of the pain you could inflict with it. But you felt it in yourself, too. My head rang and my thoughts shook. I suppose I'd never noticed before because when Hythe had used that power on me, I'd been too much in pain to observe much at all. When he'd used it on others, I'd either been wary or satisfied. I'd been thinking about them, and about me. But I'd never seen Hythe flinch. I supposed that was one more trick I'd have to learn. You had to be tough to be one of the peb, so it made sense you had to be tough to be a trainer. Nothing came free.

Presh was a step behind me, so close I could feel her warmth and her breath, but the presence of Hythe's body was stronger, as if he were still breathing. But his heart had stopped. Blood no longer pulsed out of him in a rhythm. Now it leaked, drops gathering on torn fabric and falling into the pool of blood he lay in. 

Hythe had always dealt with the bodies of the dead peb. He had taken Ashmaq's body away before I could even touch him in farewell. Now that was my job.

Hythe had explained, clearly and casually, where bodies were taken in the complex. Yet, somehow, because it had been him explaining and it was his body now, I couldn't make myself understand what to do. I was rooted in confusion.

All of this happened in far less than a second - coming back to myself, and my entire consciousness forming itself into a question. Immediately there was an answer. In my mind's eye, I could see myself going to the corridor and collecting a gurney. I could see myself picking Hythe's body up - I was certainly strong enough, and uninjured - only scratched, bruised a little, from trying to pull the peb off Hythe. I could see where to take it, and where to get supplies to clean up the mess we had made on the floor. I knew what to do and how to do it.

That was the power of the link, the way you just knew. Later, I realised, it was part of the power it had over me, too. It was hard to tell where you ended and it began. It was especially hard when you were speaking to someone else, or reacting to someone else. Then it was the outside world and you, and _you_ included the link. Only when the world was quiet was it possible to listen closely enough to your thoughts to be sure which ones were your own.

I listened to my thoughts. I said what they told me to say, and I cleared Hythe's body away.

* * *

We were shocked by our own actions. It was not hard to order Layla and Mya to help me clean the floor. It was not hard to order the peb to focus on their routines, and work diligiently. They leapt away from me, and they moved as if every flip and leap moved them not merely up and down and sideways, but further and further away from what had happened. 

But hours went passed and more and more of them darted glances towards the door.

They couldn't quite resume their routine. It was partly that I was there. Supposedly, I was meant to teach them all of my former tricks, but they all knew that that was transitory. Hythe had never spent long periods among us. He had come for the time it took for our muscles to burn and our routine to change, and he had gone again, often for many _manyan_ and _noch_ together. The longer I watched them the longer they shrank under my gaze, with a kind of indignation: I wasn't meant to be here, among Mya and Go-Eun, among Lucas and Presh.

My body was strong and sure and clever, and although it meant I would never risk my life again that way, I realised with a new concreteness that I would never perform again. I might do stunts on the bars to taunt the peb I was training, but I would never have all eyes on me again, above and below.

I shook that off before it could become a mood of its own: I was beyond that now. I was part of the world again. What I did mattered beyond the Arena.

And what the peb did must not.

Hours had gone by - and still no news from Peter, though the link had expected it.

I couldn't let the peb think about _outside_ , and how close it was, according to Joella's dangerous words. The link agreed. I came up with an idea, and it was carried out. I had a sense of the awesome resources being used to carry out my wish.

The Gymna shook, lights flickering, equipment shuddering and clanging. I'd directed the peb to floor routines; still, some fell to the ground with horrified cries.

I kept my footing. The ceiling hatch was vast and bare. There was no danger from above.

"Calma," I cried, rebuking them. "That's the guns going off," I continued, clearly and loudly.

"Wat be dis?" Lucas raised his head to stare at me.

"The guns," I said, and paused, and smiled. "They stole a spaceship. Peter's gone to bring them back."

Another vast shudder, as though the facility were a dog shaking Mariam and Leeward and Fenja as a flea off its back.

I could see it in my head. I could imagine it, and if I could, so could they. Fugitives in a tiny craft, attempting to leave the Vexak and return to Earth. The full might of an alien race levelled against them; lasers and space explosions, the warping of gravity and light.

"Pity," I said lightly. "They won't come back twice!"

On their raised faces, I saw the lie settle in again: the vastness of space, the impossibility of escape. And it was a smaller lie than the lie they had tried to believe: _this_ was our home, and there was none behind or below or beyond.

Resignation settled, on every face except Presh's. It didn't matter. Across the peb, I smiled at her, warm, approving. Her skepticism was a secret we could share.

**Author's Note:**

> 'Shoot for the moon - even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.' -Norman Vincent Peale


End file.
